


Simpler Times

by stupidnephilimlove



Series: ShHiatus Bingo Prompts (Team Red) [16]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Flashback, Gen, Post-Episode: s03e04 Thy Soul Instructed, young Simon, young clary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 22:39:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidnephilimlove/pseuds/stupidnephilimlove
Summary: Simon was in the process of moving his things into his new apartment when a gift he hadn't seen in years leads him to relive a memory.Bingo Square:Detective.Team Red





	Simpler Times

Simon still couldn’t believe his luck as he placed the box on his bed. It almost seemed too good to be true. A rent-controlled apartment with the most accommodating roommate. If he allowed himself to think about it, he’d realise that it _was_ too good to be true, but he’d had such a string of bad luck recently that surely this was the payoff?

He pulled out some clothes and threw them on the dresser across the room. He hadn’t brought everything from the boat shed yet, he was a little worried he wouldn’t be welcome, but he had the essentials. Plus, these last few boxes he’d hauled up hadn’t ever made it to the boat shed anyway, they’d just been sitting in the back of his van for the last few months.

Simon dug into the box and sudden, sharp nick to his finger had him crying out.

“What the-”

He inspected his finger; it was red, but ultimately unharmed. Gingerly he reached into the box and pulled out a photo frame. He stared at the photograph - him and Clary at graduation. The glass was broken and that seemed symbolic of how those two people didn’t really exist anymore.

With a weight he didn’t realise he was carrying, Simon sank into the mattress. Just to top his run of terrible luck, his movement jostled the box next to him and sent it crashing to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere.

Sighing Simon bent to start clearing up the mess and there, by his foot, was a pretend detective badge. Something stung in his chest at the sight of it.

-

“Okay, you’re the bad guy,” Clary said, hands on her hips, in a gesture that suggested she was at least eighteen not her current age of twelve.

“I _always_ have to be the bad guy,” Simon moaned. This was Clary’s favourite game at the moment - cops and robbers. It had been somewhat fun the first half dozen times they’d played, but it was beginning to grate on Simon. They could play songs with the guitar his mum had gotten him, or they could sneak out the back way while Jocelyn wasn’t looking and play on the roof. But no, Clary was going to be a detective just like Luke one day, and that meant she had to start practising. Now.

Clary just looked at him, auburn hair falling across her face, eyes that she hadn’t yet grown into pleading with Simon. Something Simon couldn’t yet understand curled inside his gut and he had the sudden urge to say yes to anything she asked.

“Okay,” he relented, but he made sure to keep his tone miffed, Clary didn’t need to know that.

Simon watched as Clary slotted a detective badge onto her trousers. It looked silly, the size of it pinned to a child’s waist.

“Where’d you get that?” Simon asked. He reached his hand out to touch, but Clary just batted his hand away. “Hey!” he exclaimed.

“It’s Luke’s,” Clary said, with a rush of pride.

“Won’t he, like, need it?”

Clary just shrugged, and Simon got the feeling they were going to be in trouble pretty soon.

It was confirmed when the door swung open and Luke stood on the threshold. Clary's hand whipped the badge from her belt and she hid it behind her back.

“Hey, Kiddo,” Luke greeted. “Hey, Simon.”

They both smiled and nodded.

He walked over to the table by the door, ran his fingers over it as if searching for something, then looked at the floor on either side. Sighing, Luke turned back to them, a look of confusion on his face.

“You haven’t seen my badge, have you? I could’ve sworn I left it here with my wallet.”

Simon froze. This was it. This was the moment. Then Clary smiled next to him.

“Haven’t seen it,” she lied, smoothly. “But we can help you look for it. Right, Simon?”

“Right,” Simon stuttered. “Yeah, sure. We can totally help you look for that.”

-

Simon brushed the dust from the fake detective badge, a melancholy smile on his face. Luke had gotten them both one for Christmas after he’d realised they were stealing his (Simon liked to think of it more as borrowing, just without permission). Of course, right after they got them, Clary had decided she didn’t want to be a detective anymore and had gone back to her art.

Simon placed the badge next to the photograph and couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that things had been much simpler back then.


End file.
